ded upon Peter's whim: he could eat, really eat, if it was part of
a game, but he could not stodge [cram down the food] just to feel
stodgy [stuffed with food], which is what most children like better than
anything else; the next best thing being to talk about it. Make-believe
was so real to him that during a meal of it you could see him getting
rounder. Of course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead,
and if you could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree
he let you stodge.
Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all
gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for
herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting
double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on
their knees.
When she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a
hole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, "Oh dear, I am sure
I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied!"
Her face beamed when she exclaimed this.
You remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she
had come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each
other's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere.
As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had
left behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite
impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is
calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them
than on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry
about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they
would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave
her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John
remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while
Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.
These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she
tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination
papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school.
The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on
joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table,
writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another
slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions--"What
was the colour of Moth
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